TripItautomatically collates essential travel info from confirmation emails into an itinerary to a single address, and a digital itinerary, and alerts you to gate changes. The pro version ($49 a year) includes flight, seat and fare refund alerts and lets you keep track of your rewards points and miles.

Driving? iExitoffers the services that are at different U.S. highway exits. Roadtrippers finds U.S. roadside attractions, restaurants and services near your route. And GasBuddy tells you how much different service stations are charging for fuel.

HotelTonight and Roomer help with last-minute lodging decisions and changes. And with currencies fluctuating daily, XE Currencycan help monitor your budget, updating in real time, and displaying multiple currencies simultaneously.

Evernote saves travel information as well business memos, and screenshots of maps and mapped directions for offline backup, invaluable if wireless is not around.

Language apps are brilliant aids for global travel. Bravololoffers basic phrases and vocabulary, with English phrases shown in the foreign language and sometimes as a transliteration; and you just tap to hear pronunciation. Languages include Chinese, Vietnamese, Russian and Arabic, and you can divide languages into useful categories such as “driving” and “sightseeing.”

Visual translation service, Waygo, instantly translates Chinese and Japanese characters into English without the need for an internet connection, using a combination of optical character recognition and translation technologies to instantly translate printed text by simply pointing your camera to translate. Great for street signs and menus, for starters.